The Voyage of John Cabot to America
In the early spring of 1476 the Italian Giovanni Caboto, who,
like Christopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa,
transferred his allegiance to Venice.
The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now held
temporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak in
armed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms,
and principalities which lay north and south. But Papal Rome, as the
head and heart of a spiritual empire, was still a world-power; and
the disunited Italian states were first in the commercial enterprise
of the age as well as in the glories of the Renaissance. North of
the Papal domain, which cut the peninsula in two parts, stood three
renowned Italian cities: Florence, the capital of Tuscany, leading
the world in arts; Genoa, the home of Caboto and Columbus, teaching
the world the science of navigation; and Venice, mistress of the
great trade route between Europe and Asia, controlling the world's
commerce.
Thus, in becoming a citizen of Venice, Giovanni Caboto the Genoese
was leaving the best home of scientific navigation for the best home
of sea-borne trade. His very name was no bad credential. Surnames
often come from nicknames; and for a Genoese to be called "Il
Caboto" was as much as for an Arab of the Desert to be known to
his people as The Horseman. "Cabottaggio" now means no more
than coasting trade. But before there was any real ocean commerce it
referred to the regular sea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni
Caboto must have either upheld an exceptional family tradition or
struck out an exceptional line for himself to have been known as
John the Skipper among the many other expert skippers hailing from
the port of Genoa.
There was nothing strange in his being naturalized in Venice.
Patriotism of the kind that keeps the citizen under the flag of his
own country was hardly known outside of England, France, and Spain.
Though the Italian states used to fight each other, an individual
Italian, especially when he was a sailor, always felt at liberty to
seek his fortune in any one of them, or wherever he found his chance
most tempting. So the Genoese Giovanni became the Venetian Zuan
without any patriotic wrench. Nor was even the vastly greater change
to plain John Cabot so very startling. Italian experts entered the
service of a foreign monarch as easily as did the 'pay-fighting
Swiss' or Hessian mercenaries. Columbus entered the Spanish service
under Ferdinand and Isabella just as Cabot entered the English
service under Henry VII. Giovanni--Zuan--John: it was all in a good
day's work.
Cabot settled in Bristol, where the still existing guild of
Merchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus,
writing of his visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, "especially
those of Bristol", go there with their merchandise.' Iceland was
then what Newfoundland became, the best of distant fishing grounds.
It marked one end of the line of English sea-borne commerce. The
Levant marked the other. The Baltic formed an important branch. Thus
English trade already stretched out over all the main lines. Long
before Cabot's arrival a merchant prince of Bristol, named Canyng,
who employed a hundred artificers and eight hundred seamen, was
trading to Iceland, to the Baltic, and, most of all, to the
Mediterranean. The trade with Italian ports stood in high favor
among English merchants and was encouraged by the King; for in 1485,
the first year of the Tudor dynasty, an English consul took office
at Pisa and England made a treaty of reciprocity with Tuscany.
Henry VII, first of the energetic Tudors and grandfather of Queen
Elizabeth, was a thrifty and practical man. Some years before the
event about to be recorded in these pages Columbus had sent him a
trusted brother with maps, globes, and quotations from Plato to
prove the existence of lands to the west. Henry had troubles of his
own in England. So he turned a deaf ear and lost a New World. But
after Columbus had found America, and the Pope had divided all
heathen countries between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, Henry
decided to see what he could do.
| Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of
March, 1496, when the Cabots, father and three sons, received
the following patent from the King: "Henrie,
by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of
Irelande, to all, to whom these presentes shall come,
Greeting--Be it knowen, that We have given and granted, and by
these presentes do give and grant for Us and Our Heyres, to
our well beloved John Gabote, citizen of Venice, to Lewes,
Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayde John, and to the
heires of them and every of them, and their deputies, full and
free authoritie, leave, and Power, to sayle to all Partes,
Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the
North, under our banners and ensignes, with five shippes, of
what burden or quantitie soever they bee: and as many mariners
or men as they will have with them in the saide shippes, upon
their owne proper costes and charges, to seeke out, discover,
and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions, or Provinces,
of the Heathennes and Infidelles, whatsoever they bee, and in
what part of the worlde soever they bee, whiche before this
time have been unknowen to all Christians. We have granted to
them also, and to every of them, the heires of them, and every
of them, and their deputies, and have given them licence to
set up Our banners and ensignes in every village, towne,
castel, yle, or maine lande, of them newly founde. And that
the aforesaide John and his sonnes, or their heires and
assignes, may subdue, occupie, and possesse, all such townes,
cities, castels, and yles, of them founde, which they can
subdue, occupie, and possesse, as our vassailes and
lieutenantes, getting unto Us the rule, title, and
jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castels, and firme
lande so founde." |
"To sayle to all Partes of the East, of the West, and of the
North". The pointed omission of the word South made it clear
that Henry had no intention of infringing Spanish rights of
discovery. Spanish claims, however, were based on the Pope's
division of all the heathen world and were by no means bounded by
any rights of discovery already acquired.
Cabot left Bristol in the spring of 1497, a year after the date of
his patent, not with the 'five shippes' the King had authorized, but
in the little "Matthew", with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly
all Englishmen accustomed to the North Atlantic. The "Matthew" made
Cape Breton, the easternmost point of Nova Scotia, on the 24th of
June, the anniversary of St. John the Baptist, now the racial
fete-day of the French Canadians. Not a single human inhabitant was
to be seen in this wild new land, shaggy with forests primeval,
fronted with bold, scarped shores, and beautiful with romantic deep
bays leading inland, league upon league, past rugged forelands and
rocky battlements keeping guard at the frontiers of the continent.
Over these mysterious wilds Cabot raised St. George's Cross for
England and the banner of St. Mark in souvenir of Venice. Had he now
reached the fabled islands of the West or discovered other islands
off the eastern coast of Tartary? He did not know. But he hurried
back to Bristol with the news and was welcomed by the King and
people. A Venetian in London wrote home to say that 'this
fellow-citizen of ours, who went from Bristol in quest of new
islands, is Zuan Caboto, whom the English now call a great admiral.
He dresses in silk; they pay him great honour; and everyone runs
after him like mad.' The Spanish ambassador was full of suspicion,
in spite of the fact that Cabot had not gone south. Had not His
Holiness divided all Heathendom between the crowns of Spain and
Portugal, to Spain the West and to Portugal the East; and was not
this landfall within what the modern world would call the Spanish
sphere of influence? The ambassador protested to Henry VII and
reported home to Ferdinand and Isabella.
Henry VII meanwhile sent a little present 'To Hym that founde the
new Isle--£10.' It was not very much. But it was about as much
as nearly one hundred thousand dollars now; and it meant full
recognition and approval. This was a good start for a man who
couldn't pay the King any royalty of twenty per cent. because he
hadn't made a penny on the way. Besides, it was followed up by a
royal annuity of twice the amount and by renewed letters-patent for
further voyages and discoveries in the west. So Cabot took good
fortune at the flood and went again.
This time there was the full authorized flotilla of five sail, of
which one turned back and four sailed on. Somewhere on the way John
Cabot disappeared from history and his second son, Sebastian,
reigned in his stead. Sebastian, like John, apparently wrote nothing
whatever. But he talked a great deal; and in after years he seems to
have remembered a good many things that never happened at all.
Nevertheless he was a very able man in several capacities and could
teach a courtier or a demagogue, as well as a geographer or
exploiter of new claims, the art of climbing over other people's
backs, his father's and his brothers' backs included. He had his
troubles; for King Henry had pressed upon him recruits from the
gaols, which just then were full of rebels. But he had enough seamen
to manage the ships and plenty of cargo for trade with the
undiscovered natives.
Sebastian perhaps left some of his three hundred men to explore
Newfoundland. He knew they couldn't starve because, as he often used
to tell his gaping listeners, the waters thereabouts were so thick
with codfish that he had hard work to force his vessels through.
This first of American fish stories, wildly improbable as it may
seem, may yet have been founded on fact. When acres upon acres of
the countless little capelin swim inshore to feed, and they
themselves are preyed on by leaping acres of voracious cod, whose
own rear ranks are being preyed on by hungry seals, sharks,
herring-hogs, or dogfish, then indeed the troubled surface of a
narrowing bay is literally thick with the silvery flash of capelin,
the dark tumultuous backs of cod, and the swirling rushes of the
greater beasts of prey behind. Nor were certain other fish stories,
told by Sebastian and his successors about the land of cod, without
some strange truths to build on. Cod have been caught as long as a
man and weighing over a hundred pounds. A whole hare, a big
guillemot with his beak and claws, a brace of duck so fresh that
they must have been swallowed alive, a rubber wading boot, and a
very learned treatise complete in three volumes--these are a few of
the curiosities actually found in sundry stomachs of the
all-devouring cod.
The new-found cod banks were a mine of wealth for western Europe at
a time when everyone ate fish on fast days. They have remained so
ever since because the enormous increase of population has kept up a
constantly increasing demand for natural supplies of food. Basques
and English, Spaniards, French, and Portuguese, were presently
fishing for cod all round the waters of northeastern North America
and were even then beginning to raise questions of national rights
that have only been settled in this twentieth century after four
hundred years.
Following the coast of Greenland past Cape Farewell, Sebastian Cabot
turned north to look for the nearest course to India and Cathay, the
lands of silks and spices, diamonds, rubies, pearls, and gold. John
Cabot had once been as far as Mecca or its neighborhood, where he
had seen the caravans that came across the Desert of Arabia from the
fabled East. Believing the proof that the world was round, he, like
Columbus and so many more, thought America was either the eastern
limits of the Old World or an archipelago between the extremest east
and west already known. Thus, in the early days before it was valued
for itself, America was commonly regarded as a mere obstruction to
navigation--the more solid the more exasperating. Now, in 1498, on
his second voyage to America, John Cabot must have been particularly
anxious to get through and show the King some better return for his
money. But he simply disappears; and all we know is what various
writers gleaned from his son Sebastian later on.
Sebastian said he coasted Greenland, through vast quantities of
midsummer ice, until he reached 67 deg. 30' north, where there was
hardly any night. Then he turned back and probably steered a
southerly course for Newfoundland, as he appears to have completely
missed what would have seemed to him the tempting way to Asia
offered by Hudson Strait and Bay. Passing Newfoundland, he stood on
south as far as the Virginia capes, perhaps down as far as Florida.
A few natives were caught. But no real trade was done. And when the
explorers had reported progress to the King the general opinion was
that North America was nothing to boast of, after all.
A generation later the French sent out several expeditions to sail
through North America and make discoveries by the way. Jacques
Cartier's second, made in 1535, was the greatest and most
successful. He went up the St. Lawrence as high as the site of
Montreal, the head of ocean navigation, where, a hundred and forty
years later, the local wits called La Salle's seigneury 'La Chine'
in derision of his unquenchable belief in a transcontinental
connection with Cathay.
But that was under the wholly new conditions of the seventeenth
century, when both French and English expected to make something out
of what are now the United States and Canada. The point of the
witling joke against La Salle was a new version of the old adage: Go
farther and fare worse. The point of European opinion about America
throughout the wonderful sixteenth century was that those who did go
farther north than Mexico were certain to fare worse. And--whatever
the cause--they generally did. So there was yet a third reason why
the fame of Columbus eclipsed the fame of the Cabots even among
those English-speaking peoples whose New-World home the Cabots were
the first to find. To begin with, Columbus was the first of moderns
to discover any spot in all America. Secondly, while the Cabots gave
no writings to the world, Columbus did. He wrote for a mighty
monarch and his fame was spread abroad by what we should now call a
monster publicity campaign. Thirdly, our present point: the southern
lands associated with Columbus and with Spain yielded immense and
most romantic profits during the most romantic period of the
sixteenth century. The northern lands connected with the Cabots did
nothing of the kind.
Priority, publicity, and romantic wealth all favored Columbus and
the south then as the memory of them does to-day. The four hundredth
anniversary of his discovery of an island in the Bahamas excited the
interest of the whole world and was celebrated with great enthusiasm
in the United States. The four hundredth anniversary of the Cabots'
discovery of North America excited no interest at all outside of
Bristol and Cape Breton and a few learned societies. Even
contemporary Spain did more for the Cabots than that. The Spanish
ambassador in London carefully collected every scrap of information
and sent it home to his king, who turned it over as material for
Juan de la Cosa's famous map, the first dated map of America known.
This map, made in 1500 on a bullock's hide, still occupies a place
of honor in the Naval Museum at Madrid; and there it stands as a
contemporary geographic record to show that St. George's Cross was
the first flag ever raised over eastern North America, at all events
north of Cape Hatteras.
The Cabots did great things though they were not great men. John, as
we have seen already, sailed out of the ken of man in 1498 during
his second voyage. Sly Sebastian lived on and almost saw Elizabeth
ascend the throne in 1558. He had made many voyages and served many
masters in the meantime. In 1512 he entered the service of King
Ferdinand of Spain as a 'Captain of the Sea' with a handsome salary
attached. Six years later the Emperor Charles V made him 'Chief
Pilot and Examiner of Pilots.' Another six years and he is sitting
as a nautical assessor to find out the longitude of the Moluccas in
order that the Pope may know whether they fall within the Portuguese
or Spanish hemisphere of exploitation. Presently he goes on a four
years' journey to South America, is hindered by a mutiny, explores
the River Plate (La Plata), and returns in 1530, about the time of
the voyage to Brazil of 'Master William Haukins,' of which we shall
hear later on.
In 1544 Sebastian made an excellent and celebrated map of the world
which gives a wonderfully good idea of the coasts of North America
from Labrador to Florida. This map, long given up for lost, and only
discovered three centuries after it had been finished, is now in the
National Library in Paris. [An excellent facsimile reproduction of
it, together with a copy of the marginal text, is in the collections
of the American Geographical Society of New York.]
Sebastian had passed his threescore years and ten before this famous
map appeared. But he was as active as ever twelve years later again.
He had left Spain for England in 1548, to the rage of Charles V, who
claimed him as a deserter, which he probably was. But the English
boy-king, Edward VI, gave him a pension, which was renewed by Queen
Mary; and his last ten years were spent in England, where he died in
the odor of sanctity as Governor of the Muscovy Company and citizen
of London. Whatever his faults, he was a hearty-good-fellow with his
boon companions; and the following 'personal mention' about his
octogenarian revels at Gravesend is well worth quoting exactly as
the admiring diarist wrote it down on the 27th of April, 1556, when
the pinnace "Serchthrift" was on the point of sailing to Muscovy and
the Directors were giving it a great send-off.
After Master Cabota and divers gentlemen and gentlewomen had viewed
our pinnace, and tasted of such cheer as we could make them aboard,
they went on shore, giving to our mariners right liberal rewards;
and the good old Gentleman, Master Cabota, gave to the poor most
liberal alms, wishing them to pray for the good fortune and
prosperous success of the "Serchthrift", our pinnace. And then, at
the sign of the Christopher, he and his friends banqueted, and made
me and them that were in the company great cheer; and for very joy
that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery he
entered into the dance himself, amongst the rest of the young and
lusty company--which being ended, he and his friends departed, most
gently commending us to the governance of Almighty God.
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